Valorie Rice, Senior Business Information Specialist
We are getting a better idea of what our state and country look like as 2020 Census redistricting data were released last week. Our first glance at 2020 Census came back in April when apportionment data were released providing state-level population. This recent release contains redistricting data, known as P.L. 94-171, which are used to redraw congressional, legislative, and other local district boundaries. It gives us a little deeper look into the 2020 Census findings as the data include population down to small levels of geography as well as race and ethnicity data, voting-age population, occupied and vacant housing units and group quarters data. These data are also the first to be released using differential privacy, a method that the Census Bureau has applied to the data to further protect confidentiality. Even more detailed population data are slated to be released in the coming months.
Arizona’s population grew by 11.9 percent between 2010 and 2020. As noted in an earlier article, Census 2020: Arizona Among Top-Growing States but Does Not Match Growth of Previous Decades, this was the slowest growth during a decade on record for the state. Maricopa had the highest population increase over the decade both in the total number of people and percent change, at 15.8 percent. While most counties experienced an increase in population, Figure 1 shows that Apache, Cochise, Gila, La Paz, and Navajo lost population over the last 10 years.
Like the nation, Arizona is a more diverse state this decade. The White alone non-Hispanic population went from 57.8 percent in 2010 down to 53.4 percent in 2020. There were notable changes in the number of people identifying as Two or More Races, enough to lift from 1.8 percent in 2010 to 3.7 percent in 2020. The percent of the state that identifies as Hispanic or Latino moved from just under 30 percent in 2010 (29.6 percent) to just over that in 2020 at 30.7 percent. Note that the Census asks two separate questions, one for Hispanic or Latino origin and then one for race, as a person who is Hispanic or Latino can be of any race. Figure 2 exhibits the percent of the total population that are Hispanic or Latino or not Hispanic or Latino and by each race alone, not Hispanic or Latino.
Arizona is becoming an older state according to the new data. The percent of the population under the age of 18 was 22.5 percent in 2020 compared to 25.5 percent in 2010. This falls in line with the nation as the population under the age of 18 in the U.S. went from 24.0 percent in 2010 to 22.1 percent in 2020. Greenlee County had the largest share of young people at 28.4 percent while Yavapai had the smallest at 15.7 percent.
There were 3,082,000 housing units in the state of Arizona in 2020, a growth of 8.3 percent from 2010. Housing units increased 6.7 percent in the U.S. during this time. The vacancy rate for houses in Arizona was 12.2 percent, higher than the U.S. rate of 9.7 percent. Pima County had the smallest vacancy rate at 9.2 percent and La Paz had the largest at 45.2 percent, as seen in Figure 3. Persons per household was down slightly over the decade, going from 2.63 to 2.58 in the state with only La Paz County having an increase in persons per household.
The vast majority of Arizona residents live in households yet there is a small number, 2.2 percent of the population, live in what is termed group quarters. Group quarters come in two groupings: institutionalized (such as correctional facilities or nursing homes) and noninstitutionalized (such as college dorms and military quarters). The number of people living at group quarters increased overall during the past decade but the figures for different types of group quarters varied. Correctional institutions, juvenile facilities and military quarters all decreased in the number of people living there while nursing homes, college dorms and other types of institutional and noninstitutional group quarters increased.
Census 2020 redistricting data will be available on data.census.gov on September 30. Look for more articles about our changing population as further 2020 Census data are released in the coming year.
